Like most Steam features, Remote Play Together is pretty user-friendly once you get the hang of it, but it’s also well nested away, so finding it and using it for the first time can be tricky.
What Is Remote Play Together?
Remote Play Together, one of two features currently in Steams’s Remote Play family, allows you to play multiplayer games with other Steam users, even if not all the Steam users own the game, or even have it downloaded.
The Remote Play ecosystem has been developing since 2019, and a feature that expanded Play Together to users that didn’t have Steam accounts became available in the Steam Client Beta in early 2021. The feature didn’t stay in beta for long and is currently available to Steam users that don’t have the Client Beta.
The other feature, Remote Play Anywhere, uses the Steam Link app to cast Steam games onto other connected devices.
What Can You Do With Remote Play Together?
With Remote Play Together, you can invite your Steam friends to play select multiplayer games with you, even if they don’t own that game on Steam or have it installed on their device. It also works the other way around: if your friend wants you to play on their games, they can invite you to a session even if you don’t own it or have it installed.
Promotional material from Steam compares the feature to multiple users not all needing to own separate copies of a game to play together on a console. The Remote Play Together feature takes this one step further by allowing users to play together on one player’s owned copy of the game without all the players being in the same shared physical space.
Games That Work With Remote Play Together
Not all multi-player games are compatible with Remote Play Together, but “thousands” of titles already are, according to Valve, the company behind Steam.
Maybe you already have games that are compatible with Remote Play Together but, if you aren’t, Steam makes it easy to search the marketplace for titles that are. Popular compatible titles include:
Call of Duty: Black Ops III Mortal Kombat 11 Human Fall Flat NBA 2K21 Civilization VI Stardew Valley Jackbox 7.
Searching Steam for Titles Compatible With Remote Play Together
To explore Remote Play Together for the first time, hover your cursor over the Browse button in the menu at the top of the page. In the resulting drop-down menu, click on Remote Play.
This page has some resources about the Remote Play family of applications. Scroll down and select the GAMES YOU CAN REMOTE PLAY TOGETHER tile to explore all the Steam titles that are currently supported.
Searching Your Owned Games for Titles Compatible with Remote Play Together
You can also check if any games that you already own are compatible with Remote Play Together. To do this, select Collections from the LIBRARY drop-down menu to navigate to the games that you already own. Then, in the menu on the left side of the window, click on the filter icon and select Remote Play Together from the FEATURES section.
Inviting Friends and Playing
When you open a game that is compatible with Remote Play Together, a special notification appears in the bottom right corner of the window. If you miss this, don’t worry, you can access Remote Play Together through the Steam Community Features by pausing the game and pressing Shift + Tab.
From the Community Features menu, click the View All Friends button in the FRIENDS section. From the FRIENDS menu, right-click the friend that you want to play with, or click the arrow icon next to their name. Then click Remote Play Together in the resulting drop-down menu.
Your friend will receive a notification through Steam alerting them you want to play a game with them. It will also open a panel for you, where you can copy a sharable link that you can send through other messaging platforms.
If you’re on the other side of the invite, just watch for it in your Steam Messages. When you get the invite, just click on the green Play Game button.
Who Will You Remote Play Together With?
Of all the features that Steam offers users, Remote Play Together might be one of the coolest. Unfortunately, like many Steam features, it’s kind of buried in nested menus, despite Valve making quite a fuss of the additional function.
The feature is likely to become a more prominent part of the Steam platform, and the number of titles that work with the feature is expanding. With so many titles available, you’ll have no excuse but to play together!
